First Day back in Panama Service in a Month

First day back.  So after my month long vacation in Washington and in Mexico it is time to get back to work. I arrived back in Panama on a Thursday afternoon with hopes make it in time for our Thursday night meeting but with going through immigration in the airport and traffic I wasn't back to my house until about 6pm and our meeting starts at 5pm so I wasn't able to make it to the meeting.  It was nice to back "home".  I cleaned at little got some food and went to sleep tired from the long night and day of traveling.  I was planning on trying to go in service on Friday but I slept through my alarm and woke up at 11am.  I guess my body need more rest then I thought.  So Friday I went grocery shopping and went and visited a couple of friends from the hall letting them know that I was back and then went to bed early still tired from traveling and trying to readjust to the heat again.  Saturday morning I woke up on time and went out in service.  It felt so good to back out in service in our territory here.  It was great to see so many from the hall in the morning and be back in the territory.  I was happy to be back to our dirt road territories and really having bible conversations with people in the territory.  Here are few pictures from that day.

Annie

Naomi, my picture taker.  You will notice that one of the pictures is from a low angle, it is because Naomi was taking the pictures for me.

Xenia

Grenda and Annie

It is nice to be back here in Panama in the preaching work with my congregation.  I can't believe that I have now been living in Panama a year.  Time flies by when you are in the work of the Lord.  Since I have been here a good period to time it is nice because I finally am not guess so much of how things are done here and I feel like a part of the congregation.  After being in Washington for a month it was hard to come back to the heat here.  I enjoyed my cool/cold Seattle days but I missed the sun to.  Happy to be "home".

Circuit Assembly

Well it has been a while since I posted anything, sorry for the long delay.  I was in the States for a month visiting family and friends and since I have gotten back it has been really busy so I will try to caught you up on what has been going on with the next couple of Blogs.

We had our Annual Circuit Pioneer meeting on a Friday and then the Circuit Assembly on the weekend.  I am in circuit 14 and there are 121 pioneers, 4 special pioneers and average 5 studies per pioneer.  Here are a few pictures.

Xenia and her 2 studies on the left.  This was there first time at an Assembly and they really enjoyed it.  At first they said that they were only going to stay for the morning but then they ended up staying for the whole day and really enjoyed it.  I study with there mom but she was working so she was not able to come.

Looks like I wasn't the only who wanted to wear purple. Doris, Me and Doris's Mom. I felt like a giant next to the mom.

Yule and her New Husband Reuben.  They now are in the El Valle congregation and are both pioneering.  He was in 2 parts on the Assembly, they are a very cute couple that is putting Jehovah first.

Avela and Maria.  Avela is a unbaptized publisher and making great progress and has just made herself a part of the congregation and her sister Maria is working to become a unbaptized publisher.

Kelly's Mom, Kelly and Me

District Overseer Giving Final Discourse.

It was a great assembly.  Can't wait to the District Convention this Year.

Another House Guest

Last Sunday I was at home hanging out in my room reading.  Since it has been windy lately I have started leaving my back door open so that I can a breeze.  All of the sudden I heard the dogs outside of my door running and round and barking so I went to go see what was going on and I saw this iguana sitting right outside of my door.  I screamed and ran for Elvis next door to come and get rid of it.  I was screaming because I wasn't sure if it would be aggressive or not.  When I ran into Kris and Elvis's house hysterical they are all calm so then I realized that I must have been over reacting so I asked if they are aggressive and they are like "No" they don't do anything until less you corner them and are attacking them.  A few minutes later Elvis came to my house and put the iguana on a broom pole and put him up in a tree so that the dogs would leave him alone.  As Elvis put the iguana on the stick the iguana was all calm and cool about it like thanks from saving me from these annoying dogs.  I had never been afraid of iguana before but when you see one at your door that looks like it is about to come in your house it is a whole different story.  Lesson learned no need to be afraid of  iguanas in the future.

Mr. Iguana

Gira????? What is a Gira?

This last Monday we had what is called a Gira in our congregation.  A gira is basically when a congregations most likely from the city goes to preach in rural territory to help a congregration cover territory that is not worked very often.  My congregation is pretty small so the amount of territory that we have, so one of the congregations in the city contacted our brothers about doing a gira in our area.
There were about 70 brothers and sister that came from Panama City to come out in our rural territory.  They arrived around 8:30 am and were there to preach all day with us.  The brothers divide everyone up into smaller groups and assigned captains and then we started preaching.  Because it was Monday, not a normal service day for my congregation, there was not many out from my hall so the few of us that were out helped the groups that we were assigned to, to work the territory in the best way possible.  Even though I have almost been here a year I still know all of the terriotries really good so I was happy another local sister was also in my group.  I really liked my group, I made some new friends.  It is always fun to meet new people.  Here are a few pictures of the group in the morning.

Making arrangements in the morning.

As you can see we were a huge group.  But thanks to the brothers it was all very orderly.

Lunch time.

This is a very nice couple that I met and hit if off with and we joked around all day long they were part of my group.  I originally had only planned to stay for part of the day but I was having such a good time that I decide to stay the whole day but I hadn't brought lunch with me but when you are with Jehovah's people you will always be taken care of.  The couple invited me and another sister from my hall of have lunch with there family.  They had tons of food with them, hot dogs and tons of condiments, chips, hot soup, cookies and drinks.  I started call them the local restaurant because they had such a big spread and shared with everyone.  It was fun getting to know them and some of there family that was also there.  The brother grew up here in Panama but didn't learn spanish until he was 15 years old because the area he lived in in Panama City was a english speaking area with mainly people from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands.  He is half Jamaican and half Barbados.  When he spoke english I could here alittle of the Jamaican accent he said ya man a couple of times.

Some other sisters that were in my group they were very entertaining.

It was a long day, full of good company, lots of walking in the hot sun, preaching and making new friends.  The bus came at 3:30pm to come pick the brothers and sisters up and take them back to Panama City.  All enjoyed and the congregation wants to come back again to preach some more here.  It may not seem like a long day 8:30am to 3:30pm but when you factor in walking all day up and down hill and the blazing sun it very quickly becomes a long hard day.  I got home around 4pm, tired but really happy have made new friends, gotten some new return visits and studies and content knowing that I had my best for Jehovah.

My House

I realized that I never put up pictures of my house so here are a few pictures of the inside of my house.  I finally almost finished getting every thing how I want it.

Family Room and Dining Room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Curtains in my Bedroom.

Bed with my Chair Night stand

Bathroom

 I still have a few things to finish up.  I painted in my bedroom but I need to finish some of the trim work.  This is the first time that I have ever painted the walls in a place that I live.  In my bedroom 2 of the walls are cream and 2 are this blue gray color.  As you can see from the photos my bedroom is really big which I really like because it help keep it a little cooler.  I also painted the windows/center block things in the family room green.  There are still a few more things that the owner still need to do to the house like put in the tile floor in the kitchen and family room area and put in the drop ceiling but over all I really like it here.

Noisy Neighbors

So over the last couple of weeks really late at night and really early in the morning I had been hearing a whining noise but I hadn't seen what was making the noise until just a couple of days ago.  Well it turns out that the neighbor dog had puppies.  She had 12 puppies.  When the mom would leave the dog house where the puppies were the puppies would start crying.  Once I saw them it was hard to annoyed because they are so cute.  The neighbor has sold all but 2 of the puppies he is going to keep 2.  The dogs are a mix of golden retriever and some thing else so the neighbor was able to sale them instead of just giving them away.

These are the 2 that he is going to keep.

As you can see we were all happy to hold the super cute little puppies even though they had been so noisy who can deny those cute little faces.

Since marty love puppies so much I took the puppies to see him.

He loved the little puppies and started to lick them.  He would be a great dad.

This is just 3 of the 12 puppies.

Wedding

This is Yulesa she is getting married as you can see.  Last Saturday was her wedding.  I was the driver for part of the day.  I picked her up and took her to the Kingdom Hall and then took her and her husband to the reception.

Nieces and nephews of the bride.  The two little ones on the left are twins and if you look really close you will notice that they have blue eyes.  The little boy has one blue and one brown.

We arrived at the Kingdom Hall a few minutes early and she was still waiting on the rest of her family to arrive in a different car and there isn't a place that she could wait in the hall with out everyone seeing her so we waited in the car for a few minutes.  She was very happy and relaxed.

Listening carefully to the talk.

The groom didn't know what to do with the vale when it came time to kiss the bride so he just put it over his head to.  It was cute.

Bride and Groom and Bridal Party

Br. Batista from our hall.  He took tons of pictures.

Anne Batista was one of the bridesmaids.  As you can see she looks great.

The Marcus Family.  Now there are 3 girls left in the house.  But probably not for long because 2 of the girls have boyfriends.  Yamilet who is on the far left side in purple had a brother that she has been getting to know come from about 3 hours away with his family and I guess he talked with her parents so she might be the next one to be getting married.

The Cake.

There wasn't enough room in the kitchen to cook for the 125 people that were there for the wedding to they had to cook come outside also.  The food was really good.

Yule had a wedding dress made but it didn't come dancing ready so Doris from our hall bustled the dress by hand so that Yule could dance.

The Reception was at the Marcus's house.

Bridal Party Dance

Br. Batista and Doris cutting the rug.

Elvis and Doris Dancing.  Doris is a dancing machine.  She danced all night long.  Like all wedding we danced the electric slide but here the call it the Boogie Boogie.  Over all the wedding was alot of fun and very pretty.